


This Is A Love Song In My Own Way

by pocketmumbles (livelikejack)



Series: Not Your Favorite Record [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-28 23:38:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3874204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livelikejack/pseuds/pocketmumbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek turns his head towards him, grinning bright and fierce. In the moment when the crowd’s voices hang in the air, the verses just beginning to fade, Scott meets his eyes and thinks, <em>I love this so much</em>.</p><p>Then fingers find strings, breath punches through lungs, and hearts beat in perfect time. Scott tilts his head to the blinding lights, and they tangle together and fall into the chorus.</p><p> <br/><em>(Or, a Derek/Scott band AU.)</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is A Love Song In My Own Way

**Author's Note:**

> Music duo AU where Derek writes the lyrics and plays the bass, and Scott writes the music and sings. If that band dynamic sounds an awful lot like Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump, well, that's why the fic title is a line from Fall Out Boy's song, ["Bang The Doldrums."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C8f29nPyRk)

Scott squashes onto the couch next to Derek – no, not next to at all. There isn’t nearly enough space for _next to_ , so he simply jams one leg between Derek and the back of the couch and drapes the rest of himself directly on top of Derek. “Derek,” he hisses in what he probably imagines is a very subtle whisper, but realistically might actually be loud enough for even the bus driver to hear. “Derek, are you awake?”

Derek grunts. If he doesn’t open his eyes, then he can still plausibly deny that he has been returned to consciousness. “No.”

Scott giggles and shoves his nose into Derek’s cheek. It’s his high, happy giggle, which means that he’s fallen out of the realm of tipsy, but Derek isn’t in any danger of getting puked on. “You’re talking to me, so that means you’re awake,” Scott says, breath tickling against Derek’s stubble. “You don’t talk in your sleep, Derek. I know you’re awake.”

Derek sighs and cracks one eye open. Scott beams down at him, blurry and bright-eyed and damp with sweat. “You got me,” he says, freeing his arm from the couch cushion to pat Scott’s back. “What d’you want?”

Scott leans into his touch, snuggling down and pushing Derek’s jacket out of the way until he can pillow his head on Derek’s chest. “Hi.”

He snorts. “You woke me up just to say hi?” Scott nods confidently into his chest, as if that were a completely logical thing to do. For him, it probably is.

For them, it definitely is. There is a long list of odd habits and silly quirks that only make sense to Derek and his bandmate, and this is probably one of the less weird ones. He stares up at the dark ceiling, watching faded lights zoom past the windows. Wind howls tinny and echoed outside; they’re probably driving through a tunnel. Derek’s adapted his body to fall asleep anywhere, and the engine’s soft rumble is almost like a lullaby for him now, but he knows that it always takes Scott a few days to get settled in on tour. He cards his fingers through Scott’s damp curls, tucking Scott’s head further under his chin. “Good show tonight.”

Scott nods. It’s sluggish, and his cheek drags slow and mashed against Derek’s thin shirt, so he knows Scott’ll be passing out soon. On top of him. Trapping him on the couch until Scott wakes up again or falls right off, whichever happens first. “’s gonna be a great tour, Derek.”

Derek curls his other arm over Scott’s hip, holding him away from the edge of the couch. In a couple weeks, he’ll let Scott fall off – no, no, he’ll probably dump Scott onto the floor himself – but for now, when everything’s exciting and new all over again, they can both sleep.

 

* * *

 

Scott loves being on stage.

The thrill never gets old, the sudden spike of adrenaline as he steps into bright lights and deafening roars. The venues get bigger and bigger, dark clubs and crowded theaters and massive stadiums, the pit fanning out farther than his eyes can see and cell phones twinkling all around.

He loves the energy of the crowd, watching him with hungry eyes and eating him right up, taking what he gives them and hurling it right back tenfold. When they move, jump, lift their hands in the air and reach for him – it’s intoxicating. It’s like staring down a tidal wave, opening his arms wide and letting it break over him, sweep him up, and carry him into the next crash. They cheer with him, for him, following his cues like a conductor as they raise their voices as one to sing.

It’s probably his favorite part when they sing along with him, when they sing back _at_ him. It’s such a fragile connection, so vulnerable, emotions laid raw to be consumed and spat back out. The moments when he can step back from the microphone, hands leaving his guitar to spread wide and catch Derek’s words sung back from hundreds of voices – those are his favorite. He savors those moments, tilting his head back and letting his eyes slide shut as he drowns in their voices.

And when he opens his eyes and sees Derek, just a few feet to his left with his bass gripped tight, face open and aching and astonished, so astonished every time he hears his own words echoed back to him – that’s the part he loves the most.

Derek turns his head towards him, grinning bright and fierce. In the moment when the crowd’s voices hang in the air, the verses just beginning to fade, Scott meets his eyes and thinks, _I love this so much_.

Then fingers find strings, breath punches through lungs, and hearts beat in perfect time. Scott tilts his head to the blinding lights, and they tangle together and fall into the chorus.

 

* * *

 

He isn’t freaking out. He isn’t. He is so calm, so relaxed, okay. That tensing in his muscles? It’s a new style of relaxing, see, you just clench every muscle in your arms and your legs and you draw your spine taut like a bow…

Scott bursts into the green room, yodeling at the top of his lungs. “Ten minutes!” he sings, trailing off into a truly ridiculous trill as he bounces across the room. “Boyd let me sneak up to the stage and say hi-”

The knot in Derek’s stomach loosens a little. He rolls his eyes at Scott. “No, he didn’t.”

“Nope, he definitely did,” Scott says, nodding at Derek with a smirk. “Admit it, Derek, he likes me more than you.”

“He just hasn’t learned not to fall for your sad puppy eyes yet,” Derek huffs. “He definitely likes me more than you. Especially if you keep making his job harder for him.”

Scott shoves out his lower lip in an exaggerated pout. “I just wanted to say hi to our fans!” he says. “They’d been waiting for so long, you know-”

“Just like every other show.”

“-and oh man, Derek, it’s _packed_.” Scott beams at him, eyes starry. “There’s so many, holy crap, there’s gotta be hundreds. Hundreds of people came out just to see us! Just for you and me!”

The knot in Derek’s stomach tightens and bunches itself even more. “Yeah,” he says, aiming for casual and failing miserably. “Yeah, that’s…that’s great.”

Scott looks at him for a moment, then shoves himself onto Derek’s chair and burrows under Derek’s arms. Derek grabs the edge of the chair to stop himself from tipping out, leaning into the chair’s back as his feet leave the ground. “Scott, what’re you doing?”

“Hugs,” Scott mumbles into Derek’s armpit. “Pre-show hugs.”

“We don’t do pre-show hugs.”

“We do now,” Scott says, nodding firmly against Derek’s shirt. “I’m your frontman, man, if I say I want hugs you have to give me hugs.”

“You’re my frontman-man?” Derek parrots, trying to edge back onto his chair. Scott doesn’t budge, but the movement bunches the hem of Derek’s shirt around his ribs. He gives up and slumps back with a sigh.

“Exactly,” Scott says, nodding firmly. “Frontman-man. Graduated from the Redundant School of Redundancy.” He wraps his arms tighter around Derek, the tips of his fingers brushing bare skin. “You know you got this, Derek.”

Derek lets out a shaky breath. “Yeah, I don’t actually know.”

“Well, _I_ know,” Scott says. His breath ghosts hot and soothing through the thin material of Derek’s shirt, warming the skin beneath and spreading through his chest. “I know you got this. We’re gonna kill it out there tonight.”

He sighs as Scott traces feather-light spirals on his back. “I still think you should take the piano solo for the new song, not me.”

“Derek, you can play that solo blindfolded upside down,” Scott says. He snorts. “Literally.”

Derek grimaces. “Yeah, that’s the last time I get drunk with Stiles and Allison.”

Scott laughs. “See? If you can do it then, you can do it now. I know you can.”

“I just…” Derek sighs again. He ducks his head into Scott’s hair. “I don’t want to mess up your song.”

“You won’t,” Scott says. He tilts his head to grin up at him. “I wrote it for you.”

His chest tingles hot and fuzzy as his stomach abruptly unknots. “You did?” he croaks.

Scott nods, still grinning up at him. “When I wrote it, I thought to myself, ‘I only ever want Derek Hale to play this, so that he can mess it up just like he did with the basslines for every single show on our first tour-’”

Derek snorts. He tries to tip Scott out of the chair, but Scott clings to him like a limpet. An evil, cackling limpet. “Oh, you mean like how you sang the chorus for ‘Code Breaker’ wrong so many times that none of our fans believe me when I tell them the real lyrics?”

“Exactly,” Scott says, nodding solemnly. “I believe in you, Derek Hale.”

Derek sighs. “Thanks.”

“And now you’re supposed to say, ‘I believe in you, too, Scott McCall.’”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“Oh, I see how it is.” Scott’s fingers dig into Derek’s side, and his stomach jumps. Derek leans away from Scott, eyes narrowing. “Don’t you dare, Scott McCall. I know your weak spots.”

“Oh, you mean the ones Stiles told you?” Scott’s lips curl into a grin. “Yeah, he lied.”

“Scott-” Derek begins, and then Scott’s hands shove under Derek’s shirt and skitter over his skin. He falls off the chair and onto the floor, gasping between peals of laughter while Scott tickles him mercilessly.

The door opens. “Time to-” Boyd begins, then sighs when he sees them tangled on the floor. “Really, guys?”

Scott ducks under Derek’s arm as they follow Boyd to the stage, draping it over his shoulder and squeezing Derek’s hand. “We got this, Derek,” he says.

Derek grins down at Scott and squeezes back. “Yeah, we do.”

 

* * *

 

Scott drags himself onto the lawn chair, hissing as burning metal stings his arm. Derek watches from his facedown sprawl on his own lawn chair, eyebrows raised in amusement behind his sunglasses. “Told you,” he says.

“That was such a mistake,” Scott gasps out. He’s more sweat than human at this point, can already feel it pooling between his thighs and the chair. “Why did I think moving was a good idea?”

“Because you wanted to find food,” Derek says without a trace of sympathy in his voice.

Scott slumps down in the chair, gasping for air. It presses around him like a fuzzy, sweaty burrito. He’s going to _die_. “Starvation is better than this.”

Derek stares at him, mouth set in a thin line. He isn’t nearly as inscrutable behind those sunglasses as he thinks he is. Scott isn’t about to tell him, though, partly because it’s fun to watch Derek try to be slick, and partly because Scott’s pretty sure he’s going to burst into flames the next time he moves a muscle. Even a lip muscle. “It’s really not _that_ hot out, you know.”

“Tell that to your sunburn,” Scott shoots back.

Derek blinks – Scott can tell, okay, Derek has a blinking tell even with those dumb plastic sunglasses from Isaac’s merch – and twists around to look at his reddening back. “Crap.”

Scott doesn’t laugh, partly because he can be the better man in this situation, and partly because laughing involves moving involves overheating like a secondhand car abandoned on a lonesome highway, rusting away in an asphalt graveyard. He frowns at himself. “This is why Derek writes the lyrics,” he mutters.

“What?” Derek asks, sitting up gingerly. He winces as his back touches the lawn chair, mouth twisting into a tiny, unhappy pout. Scott sighs internally, apologizes to his soon-to-be-disintegrating body, then heaves himself up from the lawn chair. “Where are you going _now_ , Scott?”

After several excruciating minutes of swimming through hell’s inferno, Scott finally makes his way back to the bus and drapes a soaking towel over the back of Derek’s lawn chair with a flourish. Well, it’s not so much a flourish as it is a reverse belly flop back into his own chair, but Scott can’t be bothered to function right now. Why does it have to be so _humid_.

Derek leans back slowly against the towel, letting out a long sigh as he relaxes. “Thanks,” he says, sounding more than a little surprised. “You didn’t have to.”

“I got your back. Literally,” Scott says, eyes slipping shut. Maybe if he pretends it’s dark out, he can trick his body into feeling colder. “You’re gonna have to find a new singer, though; I’m pretty sure I’m about to melt through this chair.”

“Well, don’t melt just yet,” Derek says. A shadow falls over his face, and Scott hears crinkling paper and Derek muttering, “Thanks,” before the scent of greasy burgers wafts towards him.

He opens his eyes to Liam disappearing around the bus with a wave, then turns to see Derek holding a hamburger under his nose. “Dude!” he exclaims, springing upright. “You got me food?”

“Technically, Liam did,” Derek says. “I just called in a favor.”

Scott peeks under his bun. “You even remembered extra pickles!” He devours half the burger in a single bite, then swallows down a sob when Derek hands him a bag with a second burger and large serving of fries. It’s heaven. He sizzled through all seven circles of hell and now he’s in sweet, greasy, extra-pickled heaven. “Thank you, Derek,” he says, throat suddenly tight. “You didn’t have to.”

“I got your back,” Derek says, digging into his own cheeseburger. “Well, in this case, I guess I got your stomach.”

Scott beams through a mouthful of hamburger and doesn’t even mention the bright red tanlines around Derek’s sunglasses.

He does, however, text Stiles to help him find a giant bottle of aloe.

 

* * *

 

He isn’t freaking out. He isn’t. He is so calm, so relaxed, okay. That tensing in his muscles? It’s a new style of relaxing, see, you just clench every muscle in your arms and your legs and you draw your spine taut like a bow…

Scott swings close to him, flashing Derek a cheesy grin before he bounds onto the stage and joins in the chorus. His gaze flicks to sidestage for a moment, zeroing in on Derek, and Derek musters up his happiest smile before Scott turns back to the screaming crowd.

He doesn’t even have to fake it, is the thing. He loves watching Scott perform, loves the way he throws himself into a song with willful abandon. He knows how lucky he is to be able to stand mere feet – or inches, sometimes – from such an unstoppable force night after night. But times like these, when Scott performs with another band and Derek gets to watch quietly, privately, free to lay his emotions bare where Scott can’t see…in a way, he loves these moments even more.

He wouldn’t trust anyone else with his words. No one else can understand them the way Scott does, no one else can craft the perfect song to cradle his lyrics safe and sound. And no one else can sing them the way Scott does, can take all of Derek’s deepest and most vulnerable thoughts and cover them with his own, breathing life into dry paper and fading ink. Scott embodies his words so fully, puts his own heart on the line so willingly and makes their songs so _theirs_ until Derek can’t even tell where his hand ends and Scott’s begins. He wouldn’t want it any other way.

But there’s something about stepping away from that vulnerability, from watching Scott perform someone else’s words without Derek to perform with him, that ties his stomach in knots. It isn’t jealousy, of course not, but rather…admiration, maybe. He gets to see Scott the way that their fans do, drawing Derek deep into the song and playing his heartstrings as skillfully as any instrument.

He can’t hide a thing from Scott, he knows. They’ve known each other too long for that, weathered each other’s soaring highs and crushing lows so much that they’ve become too tangled to ever tease apart. But in these moments, where he can see Scott and Scott can’t turn back to see him, he can pretend that he still has secrets to hide. He can pretend that Scott doesn’t know him better than Derek does, that the distance between them still means something and he isn’t in too deep.

Isaac flings his arm around Scott’s shoulders and presses a smacking kiss to his cheek, and the knot in Derek’s stomach uncurls with a vicious snap. He shakes himself as white-hot heat spreads through his chest, drawing back into an easy grin as Scott bounds offstage and into his arms. He doesn’t cling to Scott a shade longer than usual, and he doesn’t drop a kiss onto Scott’s cheek right over where Isaac had, because this isn’t jealousy. It isn’t jealousy.

He isn’t in love with Scott. He isn’t.

 

* * *

 

Scott lies back on the couch, feet hanging off the edge while he pillows his head on Derek’s lap. “Can I have my arm back now?”

“No.” Derek doesn’t look up – well, down – from his notebook, just keeps scribbling away.

“But you wrote the lyric down like an hour ago,” Scott says, twisting his arm to peer up at the red writing scrawled across it.

Derek loosens his grip on Scott’s wrist, thumb stroking absently over his skin, and Scott suppresses a shiver. “It’s not the same,” he says. “It looks different on your skin. It…”

“Means something different?” Scott tries. Derek shrugs, a quiet smile ghosting over his lips. “You know, you could just take a picture.”

Derek shakes his head. “Not the same,” he says again. “It…I just need your arm, just for now. Is that okay?”

Scott lets out a gusty sigh. “I guess,” he says, poking out his lip in a dramatic pout, then laughs when Derek rolls his eyes at him. “You know it’s okay, Derek. It’s always gonna be okay.” He waits until a smile blooms on Derek’s face, then asks, “Can I play?”

“Of course.” Derek nods, releasing Scott’s wrist immediately. His skin feels cold without Derek’s hand wrapped around it, and he grabs his guitar quickly before lying back down in Derek’s lap.

He strums idly, picking his way through chords while Derek’s eyes dart between his notebook and Scott’s arm. He’s itching to see Derek’s words, the scribbles and crossed-out couplets and sparse, precious lines put together with painstaking care. He doesn’t move, though, doesn’t speak, and knows to keep his arm with its red letters easily within reach. It’s a familiar routine for the two of them: Derek borrowing space on Scott’s body to write a short phrase or even a single word, then holding it captive later as he translates skin to paper.

Not so secretly, and more than a little selfishly, Scott likes it. He likes that he’s become a part of Derek’s writing process, as if part of him gets poured into Derek’s lyrics. Derek hoards his words with a near obsession, holding them tight to his chest until he deems them fit for consumption, but he allows Scott tiny glimpses in his own skin. It’s an honor, a privilege, a private thrill that only Scott gets to have, and it never fails to send tingles down his spine and warmth shooting all the way to the tips of his fingers. He settles into a riff, playing it over and over until it sits right in his head and tendrils of a song curl behind his eyes.

“I like it.”

Scott opens his eyes, fingers stilling on the strings as he blinks up at the bright ceiling. “Hm?”

“What you were playing,” Derek says, nodding at the guitar. “I like it.”

“Yeah?” Scott grins and plays it again, watching attentively as Derek nods along. His eyes slide shut, eyelashes brushing his cheekbones, and Scott hears muted snatches of hums as Derek carves out a melody. “You think you can do something with it?”

Derek’s eyes sweep over Scott’s arm, lingering on his own hand still wrapped loosely around Scott’s wrist before dragging back to the pages of his notebook. “I think so, yeah.”

Scott settles back, letting out a sigh as Derek lets go of his arm to pick up his pen again. “Good.”

Derek turns his head towards him, grinning bright and fierce. In the moment when their hands hang in the air, the warmth from Derek’s touch just beginning to fade, Scott meets his eyes and thinks, _I love you so much_.

Then pen finds paper, breath sighs through lungs, and hearts beat out of time. Scott tilts his head to the blinding lights and hopes, hopes for the day that they tangle together and fall into the chorus.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say [hi](http://pocketlass.tumblr.com)!


End file.
